


To Be Like You

by Dragon_of_Dreams



Series: LU Creative Train (Angst Track) [7]
Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherly Bonding, Gen, I thought prompt was Vulnerability, LU Creative Train, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Sky (Linked Universe)-centric, War and battle changes people, implied/referenced minor death, the boys need some love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_of_Dreams/pseuds/Dragon_of_Dreams
Summary: Sky should have been faster. He could have saved them.And he knows failure hurts.And sometimes he wonders how the captain handles such loss.
Relationships: Sky & Warriors (Linked Universe)
Series: LU Creative Train (Angst Track) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938178
Comments: 9
Kudos: 96





	To Be Like You

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the LU Creative Train! My fic is number 8 in the Angst track.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it.

Sky should have been faster.

He cursed his stamina. He ran through his lungs burning in his chest, gasping with every breath that quickened and quickened until he felt the choking in his throat. His steps dragged heavily under him, slowing him down into a crawl that defied his will to run. But he ran.

He ran towards the building lit aflame, seemingly worlds apart. Black smoke rose to the sky, transforming it into a storm filled of ash. Screams pierced through the air, crying out for help that stabbed through Sky’s heart. He had to keep running, he thought through the aches in his body. He had to save them!

Despite his push it wasn’t enough.

A crack. Then another. All air burst out and Sky fell to his knees, clutching his chest from the sharp stabs piercing through him. He let out coughs that hacked through his throat, flaring even as Sky covered his mouth.

His sky blue eyes stung as he watched, frozen in place, into the end of the world. The building collapsed, crashing down to dust.

The screams subsided.

All that remained was a silence ringing in Sky’s ears, screeching in his heart. A growl emerged under his throat, boiling up into a roar threatening to explode.

“Sky!”

A snap. Sky faced up to meet the captain’s eyes. Hardened eyes. Then they softened as Warriors crouched beside the Skyloftian knight, hand clutching on Sky’s shoulder. His face covered the fire still lingering in the background.

Sky lowered his head. Eyes shut.

* * *

Sky dragged his boots through the plains of Hyrule Field, letting the winds carry him as he drifted away from camp. His view fell on a lone tree at the top of a hill, rooted below the plain blue skies that knew no malice. Skies that knew none of the evils unleashed on the surface.

The Skyloftian knight sat under the tree and pulled out his harp. His fingers strummed through the strings, aimlessly running through notes. Sky sighed. “I’m sorry I failed you all,” he whispered to the wind. “Just like I failed her. Everyone.”

His fingers plucked notes that rang in dissonance, just like the screams still echoing in his mind. Sky let out a sigh, closing his eyes and tried to dream of his Sun—of her comforting presence as soft as the clouds drifting above him.

All he could hear were her screams. The clouds darkened in his eyes, turning into thunderstorms ready to strike and burn the earth around him. The world reeked of malice as it flared through his nostrils.

“Sky, how are you doing?”

His eyes snapped open. Sky looked around, covering his eyes as the radiant light shone through his vision, slowly fading to reveal the captain beside him. The world cleared up of its demons.

“Warriors?” Sky blurted out before the question registered on his mind. “Sorry, I’m fine. Just been thinking.”

“I guess hanging out alone from camp and playing that awful tune from afar must be your definition of fine, right?”

His fingers froze. Silence rang in the air as Sky’s hand hovered over the harp, twitching to play again. But Sky lowered them, now resting on his lap. “Guess it could be worse,” he replied.

Warriors. The captain stood with a neutral expression on his face as he loomed over the field. His hardened eyes held none of the cracks that would tear him into crying out his eyes. He lay unmoving, still with composure despite the events that transpired.

“Something I’ve been wondering,” Sky continued, “how do you do it?”

Warriors hummed in question, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean, you always keep yourself level-headed despite everything.” Sky bit his lip. “Calm. Sensible. You march on without letting your emotions carry you on.”

A silence carried the captain’s pose before he spoke, “You said you were trained as a knight, right?”

“Yeah.” A sigh. “But I’ve never felt loss like this. Last time something this bad happened I was very young. There was a war.”

“A war?”

A nod. “I lost my parents that way. Half of Skyloft was lost by the war but I don’t recall much of what happened. I’ve been raised within the academy ever since and I trained to ward off monsters. That’s how I got to be with Sun.” Sky smiled. “With her it was as if the war never happened. Everything was peaceful.”

Then the smile started to fade. “That was until the day I lost her to the Surface and I chased after her. Failure after failure, never reaching out to her in time.”

“And you got reminded of that.”

Warriors shuffled through the grass, dragging Sky to follow his glance on the royal scarf gliding through the breeze. “War changes people,” he continued, facing away from Sky. “I had to get used to it. In war there’s no time to think. No time to process emotions. You just fought on. Cold. Calculated. A misstep meant your doom.

“In war you don’t just fight monsters. You fight other people too. Their blood is then drawn in your hands. But you can’t stop—your life overwhelms theirs. Grief is nothing but an afterthought at the back of your mind. They’re a number. You’re a warrior.”

He paused, letting his words trail in the air as Sky processed them. War… a concept foreign to the Skyloftian knight yet struck a haunted chord to his spirit as a bloodied picture formed from these words.

“And Sky? Don’t end up like me. Don’t ever change.”

The captain walked away, leaving Sky in his somber thoughts as the emptiness of the air followed in its place.

* * *

Harp still in hand, Sky returned back to camp and greeted others with silent nods as he marched on. He dropped the instrument to the smithy’s care before asking, “Do you know where Warriors went?”

A finger pointed at the river running through at the other side of camp. After a nod Sky walked and joined alongside the currents, allowing the river waters guide him just like a leaf floating down the stream. Then his eyes landed on someone, who stood by the river’s intersection as it split in half.

Warriors. He held his arms crossed as he glared down at his own reflection, even as the currents rippled his form. He lay there, frozen, unflinching although Sky now stood a few feet behind him.

“Glad to see you joined me, Sky.”

“How did you…”

“I know people.”

The answer got Sky furrowing his eyebrows. But the more he thought about it the more he understood—how they _act_ , how they _react_. Sky found himself glancing at the captain’s head, concealed by his golden hair, and wondered what words were running to his calculating mind.

“Do you see me as a failure?” Sky blurted, bracing for the words.

Instead he got a laugh. “No,” Warriors responded. “If anything, you’re more of a hero than I ever will, even if we can’t save everyone.. While I have to live my life with blood on my hands.” Warriors paused, letting out a long sigh before continuing, “Sometimes. Sometimes I wish to return being Link—the boy who signed up in the military to help the kingdom of Hyrule. The bloodshed of war was the last thing in my mind—a war caused by my own existence.”

He chuckled. It rang hollow, false in Sky’s ears. But the Skyloftian remained silent as Warriors spoke once again, breathing out to the wind. “I wish I could see the land of Hyrule as my home again. But I don’t. All I see is a battlefield—the swords, the arrows, the armor, all scattered on the fields. It is nothing but a living reminder of the horrors that transpired. All because of me. And yet… I have to remain strong. For all of us.”

Then Warriors looked over his shoulder. A single tear streaked down the captain’s face. “You have Skyloft. You have a world you can come back to—a peace I can never dream of. But it’s people like you I fight for—to maintain and restore that peace.” He turned around, fully exposing the tears that ran down his reddening face. “Sky, I’m so sorry.”

Without another spoken word Sky rushed to Warriors’s side, hugging the captain with a tightened hug wrapped around him. Sky felt the hesitation Warriors had around him, but eventually his arms wrapped into place as they both fell into an embrace.

“Don’t ever end up like me, Sky. Your feelings make you strong—never conceal them.”

“Then why don’t you?” Sky asked, staring directly at the captain’s eyes, cracks shattered within them. “Why do you keep hiding yours?”

“Because one of us has to make that sacrifice. And I don’t want that to be you.”


End file.
